Catching Up On Rapids Moves

Ok, lots of moves to catch up on.  I was waiting to post about the goalkeeper moves on Friday for an official announcement about a contract deal but I think it may have gotten buried by today's news so I'll catch up now.  We sent a 2nd round pick in next month;s draft to Toronto for Clint Irwin.  On the surface swapping $175K MacMath for Irwin with a $220K option in his last contract year doesn't look great.  There are heavy rumors though that Clint is signing a new deal with the Rapids that will bring him in under MacMath's number for at least two seasons.  That makes this move a no-brainer.  Arguably Irwin is a better keeper than, certainly he's as good as, MacMath and he's familiar with the club.  He gives us a quality backup for Howard this year and will compete for the starting job in 2020.

We then used the 2nd pick in the Re-Entry Draft to select Andre Rawls from NYCFC.  I don't know a ton about Rawls but he's 26, was drafted by NYCFC in 2015 and spent that first year in the USL while being their back up the last 3 seasons, but never played a league game.  I'm sure he'll spend 2019 in Colorado Springs unless we need him on the bench as a backup of Howard or Irwin are unavailable.

That sets our keeper roster for 2019 at Howard, Irwin, and Rawls, which is a solid 1-2-3.

Today we made a big move, sending Edgar Castillo to New England for Rowe and then sending Rowe, $200K of GAM, and $100K of TAM to KC for Diego Rubio.  The $100K TAM matches what we got in the MacMath trade so you can kind of look at this like MacMath+Castillo+$200K of GAM = Mezquida+Rubio which is a nice piece of work.  Rubio is a 25 year old striker from Chile that has played in Chile, Portugal, and Spain before signing with KC in 2016.  He's been a spot starter/sub for KC, scoring 8 goals in 9 starts/20 appearances last year (averaged 39 minutes an appearance).  He also got his green card in KC so he does not count as an international.

I can see Rubio being a starter in 2019 or competing with another signing to start along-side Kamara.  Either way he's better than anything we had starting up top last year and paired with Kei we could see a combined 20 goals from them, which is better than anything we've had since C+C Goal Factory.

The Rapids still need to shore up the defense, I expect at least one outside back signing, and a couple more solid signings in attack would be helpful, but this is more moves before Christmas than we've ever seen from this organization so these are positive signs.  The question is, can Hudson make it all work on the field?

Two Loans This Week

The Rapids have loaned out two players this week, Sam Hamilton to Drogba's Phoenix Rising and Castillo to Charlotte.  That last frees up the international spot we need to add Aigner who returned to town today and will start training with the team when they return from Dallas.

Still no word on the status of Juan Ramirez who is no longer on loan but we don't have an international spot to put him on our roster again.

When we started this transfer window we had 5 open roster spots.  After these loans we have 6.  SMH.

Roster Status

MLS has posted a nice roster summary page that fills out the final details of our roster.  The main thing it answers is that we only have 6 international slots after our offseason trades.  This has led to the Rapids loaning Dennis Castillo out as he would be our seventh international player.  There's been no announcement beyond his status on that page as to where he's going, but I would assume Charlotte.  Apparently he hasn't left yet though, as Daniel Boniface tweeted that he was at practice yesterday.

Also over the weekend the Rapids announced they signed first round draft pick Sam Hamilton.  The only unsigned player at practice yesterday according to Boniface was draftee Jamie Siaj who's still recovering from his injury.  If/when he signs he would take one of the two remaining reserve roster spots.  There was also rumors late last week of defender Mike da Fonte of the Sacramento Republic moving to the Rapids.  He wasn't with the Republic this past weekend but he's not yet in Colorado.  If accurate he would presumably fill the other remaining reserve roster spot.

That leaves the two senior roster spots to fill.  With no international slot at the moment they would have to be filled with domestic players, but that could be changed with a trade (or if Sjoberg or Badji get their rumored green cards).  The most likely way of filling them right now then is a trade within the league.  There are no rumors of trades at the moment though.

Coverage will be a bit lighter for the next couple of weeks.  More details after that but I'll keep the blog updated as best I can with any news and results.

Castillo To Be Signed, Finally

According to the Denver Post the Rapids will finally be signing draftee Dennis Castillo.  It sounds like we're just waiting on paperwork from his old club in Costa Rica and that's been the reason for the long delay.

Castillo is a center back/right back out of VCU, drafted in the second round.  He will use the Rapids final international spot.  With this signing we'll have 26 of a possible 28 players under contract plus Tim Howard arriving in July.  That does not include Juan Ramirez on loan in Spain or Joseph Greenspan serving in the Navy.  So we have one roster spot left if we need to sign somebody but they would have to not need an international spot.  Here's our full roster with details.

GK John Berner - On loan to Charlotte
GK Chris Froschauer
(GK Tim Howard - DP) - Coming in July
GK Zac MacMath
D March Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Marlon Hairston
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - Inernational
D Sean St. Ledger - International
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Emmanuel Appiah - On loan to Charlotte
M Michael Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Jermaine Jones
M Marco Pappa
M Zach Pfeffer
M Dillon Powers
M Dillon Serna
M Jared Watts
F Dominque Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - On loan to Charlotte
F Conor Doyle
F Kevin Doyle - International - DP
F Shkëlzen Gashi - International - DP
F Luis Solignac - International

Roster News and Notes

Cleaning up a few rumors and news items around the roster.

• Sports Illustrated reports that the Jermaine Jones contract is 550K for 1 year

If accurate that makes me like this deal even more.  Jones is nearing the end of his career and as much as I like him I didn't want to be on the hook for him for more than a year or two.  This allows him to show what he still has for a year and clear that suspension and it allows the Rapids a PR boost in signing him and some quality minutes from a good player.  Then at the end of the year if he's shown he still has it then we, or another team, can make him a new offer.  I predict that Jones wanted a 1 year deal as well to be available to be signed for the inaugural season of LAFC.  Its well known that he wanted to be closer to his family in LA.  If I had to bet money that's where I would expect him to play in 2017.

• Stephen Keel apparently is doing media for MLS, based on this Twitter.

Guess that means he didn't make the Rapids roster.  That surprises me.

• The Post's Daniel Boniface tweets that Dennis Castillo and brad Spencer are still with the team

I still expect Castillo to be signed, surprised it hasn't happened yet.  I wouldn't read too much into Spencer still being here, given that he's John's son.  We may be interested in signing him or he may just be taking advantage of access to keep sharp while he looks for other options.

• All quiet on the Tim Howard front.

My guess is that they want to ride the PR wave of the Jones signing and opening week for a bit longer, then we'll start hearing about Howard again.

If we assume Howard and Castillo will be signed we still have one open roster spot.  There's really no rumors out there about any signing coming soon so we'll have to see what happens.

Rapids Go All In On Outside Signings

A wild and crazy day at the Superdraft ended with the Rapids positioned to make some big signings from outside the league and not much else.  First to recap the day.

1. Rapids send Targeted Allocation Money to LA for the #12 pick
2. Rapids send the #2 pick to Philly for General Allocation Money and a player yet to be named
3. Rapids send the #12 pick, the #2 pick in the second round, and the #2 spot in the allocation order to Chicago for the #15 pick, the #13 pick in the 2nd round, and the #1 spot in the allocation order
4. With the #15 pick the Rapids select defensive mid Emmanuel Appiah out of Cincinnati
5. Rapids send the #13 pick in the 2nd round to Dallas for the #17 pick in the second round and the #17 pick in the third round
6. With the #17 pick in the 2nd round the Rapids select defender Dennis Castillo out of VCU

So the final result:
#1 allocation ranking
General allocation money
Player to be named later from Philly
Emmanuel Appiah
Dennis Castillo
#2 and #17 picks in the 3rd round and the #2 pick in the 4th round on Wednesday

That's a far cry from my prediction of Brandon Vincent and somebody else.

Really this means the Rapids have put all their chips on outside signings.  There are basically 3 ways to acquire players.

A. Draftees/college kids - The Rapids just past on their best chances to improve in this group by trading down all day
B. Internal league trades - The Rapids have to have something to offer.  At best they have Irwin and maybe Powers but that's a zero sum game
C. Outside the league signings - This is where the Rapids have put their money

With the #1 allocation spot and allocation money while passing up a top draft pick the Rapids are clearly going with the outside signing strategy.  For a while today the rumors were that they would be signing Alejandro Bedoya but that was shot down officially tonight by Goal.com.

Allocation ranking is only used for returning U.S. National Team players (both full team and youth) and players who were sold by MLS for at least $500K and are returning.  Here's the list as of mid-summer.  We would not use our allocation ranking on Pulido who would not require that (more on that later).

I wanted to highlight a couple of quotes from the Goal.com story:

"We tried to make it happen but Nantes is not selling" Bravo said on Thursday of the club's interest in Bedoya. "We still feel securing the top spot in the Player Allocation Order is a very significant step for our organization."

According to Bravo, the Rapids still plan to use the top allocation spot to sign someone this winter, though he would not say who the Rapids are targeting

and

"Our goal is to have our team together for the start of training camp, to have all the pieces together for Pablo to start the season," Bravo told Goal USA. "Our ownership has committed to really improving our team and we have a plan in motion we feel very good about."

So clearly the Rapids new Bedoya wasn't the plan when making the moves today and they have someone else in mind.  They also expect to move quickly on this plan since camp opens (probably) in a week.

On to Pulido.  ESPN had an article today (in Spanish) saying that, if Google Translate didn't fail me, states that Olympiacos and the Rapids are very close to a deal and it was originally Pulido who didn't want to come.  It also states that this would be a one year loan with the plan that Pulido will return to Europe after one season in MLS.  Now standard operating procedure for a loan into MLS is to include an option for MLS to buy the player but its not a requirement.  I;m really hesitant to go after a player that only plans to be here a year.  That's not the long-term plan we need to rebuild this team.

If they pull this off and get a significant player alongside Pulido with a long-term plan then then will be a day of great moves.  Make no mistake though this is a must deliver move for Hinchey, Bravo, and Mastroeni.  Even with their apparent job security if they can't being in Pulido and an allocation-level player before the season starts then that's the end of the road.  Today they bet everything on this plan and they better not bust.